Week 8 done of my US National Food challenge! 6 out of 7 – currently trying to use up a whole pile of ingredients before moving overseas (again!). Lots of other activities as well as spending time in the kitchen, but still managed to complete the challenge for the week – yay me!
July 30 – National Cheesecake Day
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I made our famous cheesecake, with a chocolate peanut butter cookie crumb crust (recipe here) and a white chocolate cheesecake filling, with Reece’s mini peanut butter cups as add-ins. The original recipe is here, but as you may have seen, we adapt this recipe quite a bit. I made the whole cheesecake by myself this time around, and really should have left the filling part to Grant the guru … although the other family members who ate the cheesecake had no complaints, it probably was the worst one I’ve ever made! |
July 31 – National Raspberry Cake Day
| Another lesson learned. I used a blueberry muffin bread recipe from Chocolate Covered Katie (recipe here) and tried to substitute raspberries instead. As it was the first time I’d tried baking with raspberries (apart from being add-ins for cheesecakes), I didn’t realise just how tart they were compared to blueberries. The bread itself was quite doughy, maybe I didn’t cook it for long enough considering I was using frozen raspberries. At least it leaves me room for improvement! |
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August 1 – National Raspberry Cream Pie Day
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Learning from the tartness of the raspberries from yesterday, I made a raspberry layer with some added sugar, added to my standard pie crust (recipe here) with a cream cheese/cream/icing sugar layer (I made up the proportions as I went!). So, I actually did make a raspberry cream pie for the first time! |
August 2 – National Ice Cream Sandwich Day
| I was asked to make some cookies for my kids’ school fete, so thought I’d combine some leftover cookies with the day’s challenge. I made the really yummy monster cookies (recipe here), and then sandwiched some gluten-free vanilla ice-cream between them. The best of both worlds but all testers said they could have had more ice cream in them! |
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August 3 – National Watermelon Day & Grab Some Nuts Day
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Normally I would have just chosen one of the days to do the challenge, but thought I’d be a little adventurous and combined the two. I found a recipe for a watermelon and feta salad, that included some pine nuts, so I was able to combine both national food days. This was actually a success, and I am thinking of putting the recipe on this website for all of you to try – what do you think? |
August 4 – National Lasagne Day
| I love lasagne, but gluten-free lasagne sheets just don’t really work that well (in my experience anyway!). When we were in Santiago, we adapted the typical lasagne recipe and used rice paper sheets and mashed potatoes (pure de papas) with some grated cheese as the layers with the normal meat sauce. I had some rice paper sheets left over in the cupboards, so thought I could do this adaptation for this day. Also used a pack of chilli seasoning, so we had a mix-up of cultures. Tasted good, pity I couldn’t get a decent photo of it though! |
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August 5 – National Waffle Day / National Oyster Day
I don’t have a waffle iron and oysters really don’t work with this family, so this was a rest day for me … quite nice considering all the baking I’d done previously!
Coming up next week:
- August 6: National Root Beer Float day
- August 7: National Raspberries in Cream day
- August 8: National Zucchini day / National Frozen Custard day
- August 9: National Rice Pudding day
- August 10: National Banana Split day / National S’mores day
- August 11: National Raspberry Tart day
- August 12: National Julienne Fries day
Stay tuned to see which ones I choose to make/eat and how successful (or not) I am!
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